The Waters That Could Chase
by Billabong2011
Summary: A Pokemon story based on a character entirely of my own creation who will face almost every character, Pokemon, region, legend, enemy and challenge that has existed in the history of the series. - Rated M for future chapters sexual content, language, adult themes, violence
1. Fall Apart: Skinny

**A/N: **Hey guys! So I had this idea after reading the wonderful "Love Remains the Same" by Cantarella of Odile (if you haven't read it and are a fan of Pokemon, GO CHECK IT OUT NOW! IT'S SO INCREDIBLY AMAZING, THAT IS AN ORDER, SOLDIER). I've had a Pokemon story in mind for awhile now (with my own character, of course) but haven't found the inspiration to tell it...until I saw Odile use the '100 themes' challenge from deviantart. Using the first variation myself, I've now got a story pretty well fleshed out in my mind. But here's the thing - I will be telling it in a series of scenes and monologues according to whichever numbered 'theme' I'm given. So it's very piecemeal, very chronologically out of order, that sort of thing. But those are, quite frankly, my favorites to write, because they really challenge the reader to put the pieces together, which means it keeps them engaged :D. So, here we go, number one, welcome to my own world of Pokemon - I warn you now it is DARK, it is REALITY-BASED (it's a world in which our world as we know it once existed, and 'Pokemon' is a far, distant era in the future) and it is... at times, confusing. But I hope you enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed writing it so far!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**1. Introduction**  
"You can call me Skinny."

Ash blinked at the name. _Skinny?_

She wasn't exactly skinny (curvy was more like it), and she wasn't exactly quirky-looking enough to merit the oddity of the name - in fact, if Ash were being honest with himself, he'd have to say she was downright beautiful, hardly weird enough for him to consider the name fitting.

"Uhh...and what's your last name?" He ventured.

"Hobbes."

"Skinny Hobbes?" Misty chortled beside him. "You mean, your initials are SH?"

"I don't care what your initials are!" Brock threw himself toward the leggy brunette, grasping her hand in his own, looking up at her with a face desperate enough to kill. "I'll make your initials my _own_, if you'll have me-"

"Brock, I think it's time for you to SHHHH," Misty dragged him away by the ear as he hollered in protest, which only made the trainer with the infectious smile laugh. Arceus, she was breathtaking.

"What's _your_ name?" She asked, offering her hand. He gaped at it, stammering to remember his name.

"A-Ash...my name's Ash," He took his hand in hers, giving it a firm shake, relishing its warmth and her baby-soft skin. _These were not the hands of a **trainer**..._

"Nice to meet you Ash," She beamed at him, which made his breath catch in his throat, and his thoughts escape his mind.

"Pi, pika pi!" Pikachu protested at his feet. Skinny laughed, light and airy.

"Nice to meet you, too, Pikachu!" She squatted to offer Pikachu her hand just as she had Ash, and the cute-as-a-button Pokemon took it with a smile on his face and a spark in his cheeks.

"Chaaaa!"

Clearly, she had his approval, this girl who had appeared along the path as quickly as he'd rammed her off the edge, what with all his haste to reach the mountain's base by dusk. He was lucky Sceptile had launched such an instantaneous rescue (for her life _and_ Ash's dignity) - Ash's reaction time hadn't been quick enough for him to give the order himself.

She glanced up at him with eyes too blue to be real, so light they resembled ice.

It was the beginning of the end.


	2. Fall Apart: Love

**A/N: **So I've got a lot of these already written, which means I'll be uploading them and updating the story pretty damn fast. Unfortunately, that means that you, my lovely readers, may expect me to keep up this pace as the story progresses, and that's a promise I just can't keep... :'( I'm sorry! But I'll do my best!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**2. Love**

The Pidgeot nudged her, beckoning her forward to the untouched food beside the fire.

She shied away from him, hiding her face from view, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He cooed quietly, sidling his feathered body up to hers as night descended upon them.

No food meant no fuel for keeping herself warm.

Another tap of the disposable plate with a talon.

Another shake of her head in protest.

"I never got to say I love you."


	3. Fall Apart: Light

**A/N: **Nothing to preface this one this time, except to say sorry that it's short! The lengths of these sections vary drastically... but that's just how it goes, I guess :)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**3. Light**

The shadow of a Pidgeot was cast against the sky, swimming at sunrise in pastels of blood red, oozing and bleeding onto the horizon.

_Red sky at morn, sailors be warned…_

"King!"

He prayed she heard him scream.


	4. Fall Apart: Dark

**A/N: **So I hope things aren't too jumpy and confusing up until this point... but it will resolve itself in time, I swear! I promise! It has a point xD Just bear with me. Thanks for reading!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**4. Dark**

"Why do you like taking your jogs in the dark?"

He asked, his earnest face bright with curiosity and amber eyes muddled with confusion. He'd grown, and fast, shoulders broadening with the shedding of his youth, scars of the past etching his skin like tattoos, gloriously painted in delicious patterns like the art of a distant tribe. Pretty soon, he would be towering over her _and_ Brock, this man she'd once known as a boy. But still, that hair black as night fell over his sun-kissed face in tousled tresses, and it made him look so much like a child.

She smiled. "They never see me coming."

"Who's 'they'?" He wondered aloud. She chuckled.

He still had a ways to go.


	5. Fall Apart: Seeking Solace

**A/N: **I just realized almost all my chapters up until now have been super short... IT CHANGES, I SWEAR! Oh, you all must think I'm a dirty liar... I'll prove you wrong on the second part, just wait and see ;)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**5. Seeking Solace**

"I had another dream about mommy… Can I sleep in here with you tonight?"

"You never have to ask, tidbit."

Her daddy moved over then, allowing his daughter the room to cuddle close and chase away the nightmares with his warm embrace.


	6. Fall Apart: Break Away

**A/N: **See? It's longer! A little...By like...100 words... SEE!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**6. Break Away**

"Skinny! Skinny, no!"

His voice rang true from somewhere far off, but she couldn't lift her head to find him. The world was spinning, and she was fading.

_I'm sorry…_

_She was in a hospital room, white, pristine, and so clean it made her eyes hurt. There were flowers in a vase by the door, baskets and candy littered around the bed, posters and cards decorating the bedside table. It was familiar here, but alien too. Like the scab that covered a bad scratch the day after you fell... it had been there for awhile, but there was something off about it. Different._

_She tried not to look at the tubes coming out from beneath the blankets on the bed, or listen to the blips and beeps of the machines scattered about the room. She tried not to pay attention to anything that said mommy was dying._

_Most of all, she tried not to look at the bloodied, ailing woman bathed in sunlight, breaths coming in raspy moans that sounded like a witch breathing through a straw. Most of all, she tried not to see the way her mangled hand dangled from the edge, twitching as if beckoning her daughter forward to watch her die. Most of all, she tried not to witness the way her chest caved and her throat shook and her teeth gnashed as she breathed her last goodbye._


	7. Fall Apart: Heaven

**A/N: **I have no excuse for this one. But I have a plan for it... that's about the best I can offer :D

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**7. Heaven**

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAM; SKINNY HOBBES; WORD ASSOCIATION

Airplane: Crash

Lottery: Unlucky

Story: Lies

Friends: Pokémon

Football: Tackle

Music: Sadness

Love: Loss

Heaven: Why?


	8. Fall Apart: Innocence

**A/N: **A-ha! A long one! I told you so, I told you so, I told you, I told you, I told you so! (Please tell me I'm not the only one who watches Will & Grace...)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**8. Innocence**

"Skinny, why did you steal Daisy's lunchbox?"

The little girl wouldn't look at her teacher, instead playing with the edges of her dress, rolling her ankle around in circles, quietly watching the floor.

"Skinny? I asked you a question."

"I didn't have any."

"Any what?"

The girl shook her head, refusing to answer.

"Skinny, this is when you ask Daisy if she will share her food with you," Her teacher scolded, gentle, but firm. "Or ask me! But stealing is _wrong_."

"I don't want food!" Skinny looked up then, brow furrowed in frustration.

"Then what do you want?" Ms. Lillien knelt in front of the toddler who was now bouncing up and down – not in the playful way of a young Lillipup or Pichu, but in the way of a frightened creature ready to flee.

"There were birds of pa…para…." Skinny swallowed, stumbling over the word. "Pa-ra-dice on her lunchbox." She chewed on the edge of her ponytail, sheepish. "Those were mommy's favorites. Daddy said we get to see her today. He said he wishes he had flowers for her." She beamed up at her teacher, eyes full of hope. "But I found some! On Daisy's lunchbox!"

Ms. Lillien blinked.

Skinny's mother had died three weeks ago.


	9. Fall Apart: Drive

**A/N: **Ahhh...you, my wonderful readers, now get to meet the delicious Phipher. He's such a darling little character I've created...hopefully you shall enjoy him as much as me (MUAHAHA!).

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**9. Drive**

"What drives you to be the best, Phipher?"

He turned, blinking at her. They had just parted ways; literally, they had gone in opposite directions once outside the Pokécenter, and not ten paces later she'd called back to him this asinine question. What kind of a question _was_ that, anyway? She may have been younger than him, but it wasn't an excuse to be stupid. Didn't everybody want to be the best? Wasn't that a natural, biological imperative? Wasn't that the law of evolution, or survival of the fittest, or one of those laws he'd never memorized for his science classes as he was supposed to when he was in school? Why was she asking him this? Why _now_?

_Wonder what it's like to be in her head for a day…it must not make any sense in there at all._

"I don't need drive, I've got skill!" He sneered. _Wow, did you really just resort to third grade tactics?_ His conscience scolded him. _You're 25 years old; you're big enough to **eat** this girl, stop stooping to the level of this 19 year old hussy._ She was intolerable, headstrong, stubborn, loud and much too outgoing, but her skills as a trainer were unmistakable. Of that he was certain. "What about you?" He challenged.

"Everything!"

And then she was gone.

"…Skinny." He murmured to himself. Then walked off into the fading light of the afternoon day.


	10. Fall Apart: Breathe Again

**A/N: **This one... doesn't even... well. You'll see. I don't have much to say about it, quite frankly :)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**10. Breathe Again**

She woke with a start, half expecting to see her father's worried eyes of liquid emerald, but what she found instead was a gaze of honey-sweetened amber.

"You stopped breathing in your sleep there, man." Ash sat back on his heels.

"She's not a _man_, Ash!" Misty called from somewhere far off, aggravated and offended on Skinny's behalf. Skinny would have laughed on any other day.

"I was about ready to sic Pikachu on you…emergency shock to get your heart going or something." He laughed, scratching Pikachu's head, ignoring the fiery redhead on the other side of camp. Skinny shook, managing an uneasy laugh, the feel of her father's stone cold hands gripping her face as his life slipped away still fresh in her memory. "What was that all about?" Ash pressed.

"Just…a residual haunting," Skinny turned over, feigning the sleep that would never come. "Happy birthday, daddy," She whispered, fingering King's Pokéball across her belt.


	11. Fall Apart: Memory

**A/N: **OOOH, darkness. I love darkness. Not that you could tell. Right? Right? Right... (And just so nobody's RIDICULOUSLY confused, Skinny's got sleep problems, so what Brock 'witnessed' maaaaaay have been in the dream world...mmmk?)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**11. Memory**

"You're telling me you can't remember anything about last night?"

Skinny gaped. Brock laughed, nodding.

"Not a thing!" He grinned at her. "I can only hope I didn't miss out on something _worth remembering_, milady…"

"That's enough of that, Romeo," Misty grabbed Brock by the ear, dragging his shrieking form away as he continued to howl in pain. Skinny could only laugh, thankful that the one and only witness of her fathomless plight couldn't remember anything about it.


	12. Fall Apart: Insanity

**A/N: **See? Other characters, too! This girl gets around! (Sometimes I write in plot chunks even when I try to keep characters and places random...what can I say? I'm only human).

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**12. Insanity**

"Has anyone ever told you you're insane?"

Drew watched in horror as Skinny grabbed May by the wrist and loped up the hill toward the stampeding herd of Tauros wreaking havoc on their camp. Was she _mad _to go there now?

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Drew, I'll bring your girlfriend back in one piece!" She stopped, and turned. "Maybe." And with a wink, and a protesting May whose cheeks were now flushing a deeper red than that of her bandana, she ran off again. Drew's stomach churned; Skinny would be the death of him, May, and everyone else in between.


	13. Fall Apart: Misfortune

**A/N: **A shortie. Enjoy.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**13. MISFORTUNE:**

_Skinny Hobbes's So-Called Life_

Pleased with herself, she added it to the list of potential titles for her autobiography.

She just had to write it first.


	14. Fall Apart: Smile

**A/N: **I know, I KNOW, two shorties in a row, the one after this is long, just don't burn me at the stake!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**14. Smile**

She didn't do it much, but when she did, she broke hearts everywhere.


	15. Fall Apart: Silence

**A/N: **Ta-da! A relatively long one! The jig is up; the words are out. Bwahaha...I'm not as (p)unny as I think I am, am I? Anyway, this is one of my favorites, so yay!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**15. Silence**

"I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry!"

With one last pound of her fists against the cavern wall, she fell to her knees in defeat, grabbing at the loose soil that covered the stone floor. "I…I never meant for this to happen…"

Silence was all that met her ears, the quiet drip drop of running water somewhere far away on the other side of the wall falling in time with her erratic heartbeat.

This was all her fault.

This was all her fault and now they were going to die.

"I…I'm so sorry, I can't-" She choked on her words, biting back tears. "I can't put into words…I love you guys so much. But I was so selfish…" She hiccupped as the tears began to fall, dropping into the loose dirt like pennies into a fountain, steady as the summer rain. "You're all I have left." She swallowed for air. "I…I can't lose you. I won't…But…I don't think…think I can…anymore…"

King was the first to call out to her from the other side. It was faint, not far away, but small, like he was fighting to throw his voice through running water. She froze, listening.

"Pidg-oh?" He managed weakly. Humbly.

It was her name.

He had forgiven her.

She could hear the scraping of a talon against stone, and knew he was pining for her just on the other side, like a child for its mother. Lost, so hopelessly and helplessly lost, without anyone to guide him home.

_They were my responsibility, and I let them down._

"King, I-"

And then she heard the whimpering wine of Ninetails, the gravelly moan of Golem, the sad song of Dragonite, the trill of Banette and the mourning cry of Zorua as they blended with the easy chirps that fell from King's heartbreaking melody, all mixing together in a whirl of forgiveness and forlorn so gut-wrenchingly beautiful it made her stomach lurch to her throat.

They weren't angry at her, they weren't upset with her; they had _forgiven _her. They loved her. They were singing for her and only her, because she was all they had, and she was all they'd needed.

And now they were saying goodbye.

She was sobbing and she didn't even notice.

"I won't abandon you!" She put her palm to the cavern wall. Their crooning cries wailed on, but now the song was ebbing, their voices shaking with the knowledge that she wouldn't leave them – wouldn't _ever_ leave them. They didn't live to please her, and they didn't exist to serve her – they were her equals, and she loved them as much as she loved anyone.

It was humbling for the small horde of Pokémon trapped beyond the cave-in so far beneath the Earth, to know that their trainer, whom they loved so selflessly and without condition, returned their adoration tenfold. She wasn't human and they Pokémon, and she wasn't the leader and they her followers – they were her family.

"I will never abandon you. I promise."

The quiet that fell between the two parties was natural, comforting, even, as Skinny sat on the ground, drawing in the dirt as she devised an escape plan for her Pokémon. It was improbable, _impossible_, even, but Skinny Hobbes was nothing if not one stubborn son of a bitch. If she wanted her Pokémon freed, by Arceus they would be free.

And so they sat, waiting, with hushed breaths and alert eyes and listening ears, aware of her every move, her every stirring, for here in this cavern, inside this ebullient silence, more was said between Trainer and Team than had ever been said before.


	16. Fall Apart: Questioning

**A/N: **And here you thought I had Skinny/Ash shipped from the start! Muaha! Surprises at every turn, I tells ya...

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**16. Questioning**

"Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Ash's smile was heartbreaking as he watched Misty disappear across the sea, eyes never leaving the boat upon which she'd set sail.

Skinny scratched Pikachu's chin lovingly. "Sure I do."


	17. Fall Apart: Blood

**A/N: **DARK, DARK, DARKER, DARKEST, DARK AS NIGHT, DARK AS ALL GET OUT, DARKER THAN THE UNDERSIDE OF A BOAT THROWN DOWN A CLIFF INTO AN ABYSS FULL OF BLACKNESS AND SPIDERS AND TAR, DARKER THAN A SEA OF SHADOW AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY AT THE DAWN OF THE BLACK DEATH...

You get the picture.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**17. Blood**

She could handle the sight of human blood

– hell, she could watch a person bleed out on the floor below her and not even bat an eyelash. She'd had to do that several times, in fact. But she couldn't bear to see so much blood of a Pokémon spilt. The Zigzagoon lay on its side, throat slit, fur skinned from its ravaged corpse, paws wrenched at crooked, wrong angles that were so unnatural she barely noticed the bullet casing lodged in the dirt a few paces from the helpless, ruined body.

Poachers? Hunters? Or worse?

She ran to the edge of the wood, vomiting all her stomach had contained.

It tasted vile and sour to her tongue, acid searing the lining of her throat until her voice had gone hoarse, but it was nothing compared to the thirst for revenge that now consumed her senses.

There would be blood.


	18. Fall Apart: Rainbow

**A/N: **AHHHH, BUT WHO IS 'HE'! ... Muahaha, I'm not telling :P

..YET!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**18. Rainbow**

"Look, Skinny, turn around – there's a rainbow out over the waterfall. Just like you said there'd be."

"I don't need to turn around, I can see it in your eyes."

And then she kissed him.


	19. Fall Apart: Gray

**A/N: **I thought this desperately needed some humor thrown in... so this was what I came up with. Don't laugh at my feeble attempts to be funny :'(

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**19. Gray**

"This book sucks."

Skinny tossed the paperback into the fire, yawning, bored, and stretching.

"What was it?" Dawn asked quizzically, peering over the edge of the rising embers.

"Uh…" Skinny looked to Piplup for remembrance that he couldn't offer her. "Colors of…No…Um…Gray…Black Shades…No…"

"50 SHADES OF GRAY!" Dawn's voice rose to an octave so shrill Skinny was amazed their Pokémon didn't scream back in protest.

"Yeah, that's the one-"

"HOW. COULD. YOU. BURN. THAT. BOOK. YOU. STUPID. STUCK UP. IDIOT. I. HAVE. BEEN. ON. THE. WAIT. LIST. FOR. THAT. BOOK. FOR. MONTHS-"

"Uh…guys?" Ash and Brock gaped at the scene – little Dawn shaking Skinny by the shoulders and screaming in her face – firewood falling from their arms. "What's…going on?"

"Skinny burned 50 Shades of Gray!"

"What's that?" Ash raised an eyebrow, bending to retrieve the fallen firewood.

"A book! A book that _**I **_wanted to read!" Dawn sneered at him. "I don't expect you to understand, Ash, we all know you can't read-"

"Ha. Ha," Ash rolled his eyes. "Well, _I've_ never heard of it."

"Oh! I have!" Brock cooed excitedly. "It's a bestseller, Ash! Really, do you have any sense of pop-culture?"

"Right, out here in the wilderness with all the Pokémon I'm keeping up with _pop-culture_," Ash intoned, lifting Brock's share of the firewood into his arms, as Brock had become engrossed in the conversation about the book Skinny had just so carelessly tossed into the fire.

"She burned it, Brock!" Dawn pointed accusingly at Skinny, who sat innocently on her knees, wrapping the leftovers from dinner.

"What?" She asked. "It was horribly written. I was doing the world a favor."

"But Skinny!" Dawn pled. "It's been critically acclaimed!"

"By what critic?" Skinny snorted. Brock smirked.

"It's not a work of fine writing, Skinny, but it's become so popular for its…" He blinked then, a gleam coming to what one could only assume was his eye. "Wait…Dawn…you wanted the chance to read this book because…?"

All eyes fell to Dawn, who ran her foot sheepishly through the soil, cheeks flushing fuchsia, heightened by the dying glow of the fire.

"I…uh…well, I heard it was very good, and I, uh…"

"You wouldn't possibly know what the book is about, would you?" Brock suggested. Skinny snickered to herself as Dawn winced in embarrassment.

"Look, guys, a girl can get lonely out here on the road, you know!" She whimpered. "I…I…I thought, you know, maybe it would help tide me over…"

"Did you, now?" Brock choked on a laugh, refusing to meet eyes with Skinny or else the two of them would bowl over in fits of hysterics.

"Well, I mean, I thought, it, I uh…it might give me tips for my love life," Dawn twiddled her fingers, too ashamed to even acknowledge Piplup who had come so curiously to her feet. "I thought, it might, you know, help me understand men…"

"You're looking for _men_?" Skinny roared, then, unable to contain herself. "What are you, like twelve?"

"I'm sixteen, Skinny, you know that!" But Skinny and Brock, the elders of the group at 19 and 21, respectively, were too far-gone, and there was no hope of settling them down. "Ugh! I'm going to bed!" She stormed off, ignoring Piplup who was even giggling himself as Pikachu had translated for him just why everyone was laughing – well, everyone except Ash, who was still standing with the firewood in his arms, dumbstruck.

"I don't get it…" He blinked. "Are we still talking about a book?"


	20. Fall Apart: Fortitude

**A/N:** Again with the whole humor thing... (gratuitous comedy is gratuitous).

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**20. Fortitude**

"Extra-strength? How can these be extra-strength? I didn't think adding wings increased damage infliction."

"Skinny, you're buying pads, not a Pokémon guidebook."


	21. Fall Apart: Vacation

**A/N: **Short. Again. My apologies... and it's kind of repetitive of what you already know. But I think reinforcing it might help solidify the plot a little. This story's kind of all over the board, but if I grind Skinny's background into you, maybe it won't be so confusing? *hopeful smile*

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**21. Vacation**

The only vacation Skinny had ever had was a week off school when her mother had died.

She'd been four years old, and in pre-school.

Her dad had said he'd make it up to her.

He ran out of time.


	22. Fall Apart: Mother Nature

**A/N: **MY FAVORITE ONE THAT I'VE WRITTEN SO FAR. I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS. OMG. PLEASE. PLEASE GO READ IT NAO. I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT AND NOT BECAUSE I'M ALL LIKE 'OOOH LOOK AT ME LOOK HOW GOOD AT WRITING I AM' BUT BECAUSE YOU LEARN SO MUCH ABOUT SKINNY AND IT'S GOT SUCH A GOOD PLOT AND IT'S LONG AND YOU LEARN A LOT ABOUT ALL OF THE CHARACTERS AND I JUST... EEEEEEEEEEP.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**22. Mother Nature**

"I hate Mother Nature…"

Ash sat glaring at the flapping opening of the tent, drenched from head to toe, hair falling in his face like the wet fur of a Poochyena. The heavens had parted not five minutes earlier, releasing on the group a torrential downpour that had them soaked within seconds, scrambling to fetch their gear and hurling themselves into the tent.

But they hadn't counted on the thunder, and the lightning, and the wind, and the hail, and the sudden chill with every gust, and the night that had become blacker than shadow. The storm of the century had come without warning, and without mercy.

"Really?" Skinny grinned. "I love it!" She peered out into the night, looking up into the sky. "Just look at that lightning!"

"Skinny, stop it, I'm getting soaked!" Dawn hollered, jumping back from the tent's opening, huddling Piplup to her chest. She pulled her sleeping bag up around them both. "You'll get poor little Piplup sick."

"Sorry," Sheepishly, she zipped the flap of the tent, sighing as she did so. "I just love thunderstorms."

"That's fine," Brock shivered. "Just…d-d-don't put…it on…the r-rest of us…!"

She opened her mouth to retort in that snarky way that was so characteristic of Skinny, but before she could a blood-curdling shriek pierced the night, blaring over even the nearest crack of thunder.

"What was that?" Dawn held Piplup closer, eyes wide in fear, but the little Pokémon struggled to wrench himself from her arms, suddenly panicked and in a frenzy to be free from Dawn's grasp.

"Pi, Pikachu!" Pikachu tugged on Ash's sleeve, alert and with purpose. Skinny didn't miss a beat, picking up on their signals.

"It's a Pokémon!" Without giving a second thought, she'd hurled herself out into the brutal evening tempest, Pikachu and Piplup at her heels.

"Skinny, wait – stop!" Ash followed, blind against this dark, torrential rain that pelted him from all sides. It was only the faint glow of Pikachu's cheeks that helped him see through the pervasive blackness of the violent night, his eyes burning against the chill of the storm.

_How could she see in this?_

_ And why hadn't he brought a raincoat?_

But as his legs burned and his hair slapped against his forehead and he held onto his hat for dear life – for the thing nearly flew off several times – he was stopped short in a clearing, where Pikachu was illuminating a small area for Skinny to tend to the injured Pokémon.

An Absol lay on its side, breathing sporadic and slowed, as though it took every ounce of the creature's strength to manage it. It was horribly razed on one side – large gashes deeper than Ash's stomach could handle wove through its once pristinely white fur, rainwater running red with its blood, and the crest on its head had been nearly torn off. An upturned tree not twenty yards away seemed to be the cause, its roots drenched in the familiar maroon of sanguine. _That wasn't thunder_, he thought to himself gravely.

Skinny ran her hands over the poor thing's fragile body, softer than a wind's whisper across the sky. Gently, she cradled its head in her hand, opening its eyes with her steady fingers.

"I'm sorry," She murmured. It groaned in agony, visibly shaken by her close proximity, but too weak to flee. Absol were known to stay far away from people – it was rare that anyone got close enough to see one, let alone catch one. She searched her pockets, quick and fluid.

"I can help you," Her voice was low and even, and remarkably soothing, even to Ash. He was mesmerized, paralyzed here where the wind was a little less harsh thanks to the canopy overhead, watching Skinny seemingly work magic on the critically injured Pokémon. "But you have to trust me. Okay?"

Its eyes swam with something Ash couldn't place, before it moaned weakly, head falling to the ground, eyes closing. For a heart-stopping moment, Ash thought the Absol had passed, but Skinny reached in her pocket and pulled forth a Pokéball. Gently, she tapped its center, allowing the familiar red glow to envelope the dying creature before it disappeared inside the ball. She lovingly cradled it in her hands, then, and clipped it to her belt. She thanked Pikachu and Piplup, asking for their guidance back to camp, before returning to her old self, the one that didn't have Ash under so strong a spell.

Rising, she shooed him off. "We don't have time to sit around gawking at shit," She rolled her eyes, pushing past him.

_Good to have you back, Skinny._ He grimaced, following her back into the rain-infested night.

Nine hours and forty-three minutes later, the Absol had been released from emergency surgery at the nearest Pokécenter – three hours away from camp – and was in intensive care under the presiding Nurse Joy. Brock had, of course, tried to charm the poor girl, as he was so wont to do, but with Absol's condition so grave, she hadn't even noticed; meaning neither Ash nor Skinny had to berate him for his relentless flirting (Dawn had volunteered to see to finding an inn or a hotel for them to stay in now that they were in town). It was a time monolithic in history, Skinny had said. Ash had laughed, agreeing.

"Can I see him?" Skinny jumped to her feet when Nurse Joy had come to deliver the news.

"He's resting now and needs time to recover," She smiled gently at the worried Skinny, so restless for a Pokémon that wasn't hers. "But you're welcome to stay here the night and visit with Absol as soon as it's ready."

"Thank you so much, Nurse Joy," Skinny hugged the weary Nurse, who gave a small cry of surprise, but returned the embrace; Ash smiled – it must not be often a Trainer is so appreciative of a nurse's work. That either said a lot about people's ignorance of a nurse's job, or the amount of love Skinny had for Pokémon.

"You're welcome, Skinny," She offered sweetly. "Now, you all were in that storm, correct?" She grinned. "I think you could all use some sleep."

"Pi, pika pi!" Pikachu cooed at the nurse's feet, yawning himself.

"Even you, Pikachu," The nurse laughed. "I can have Chansey set you up a few sleeping bags in one of our wards – it's no trouble! We've plenty of room here in the clinic."

As Brock followed after Nurse Joy, engaging her in who knew what topic of discussion, Chansey hurried to a storage closet, gathering blankets and pillows from its shadowy depths. Before Ash could settle next to Skinny, she'd jumped to her feet, rushing to Chansey's side.

"Let me help you," She insisted, taking some of the blankets and pillows from Chansey's arms. Chansey grinned at her and chimed its thanks, leading her down a corridor Ash only assumed was where they would stay for the night. Wearily, he and Pikachu echoed their path down the hall, listening for the sounds of Skinny and Chansey as they set up a temporary sleeping space for the motley crew.

"Thank you so much, Chansey!" Skinny knelt in front of the pleasant Pokémon so she could flash a beautiful grin its way. "You've been a great help – Nurse Joy is lucky to have you."

"Chan-seeeee!" It bounced up and down, bowing a little in acknowledgement that its duty was now finished. But as it made its way to leave, Skinny interrupted.

"Wait," She dug in her coat pocket, and beamed when she found what she was looking for. "Please, I want you to have this." Placing it in its little palms, she offered one last warm smile. "Use it well!" And then she rose from her knees, stretching out stiff limbs. Chansey took one look at the thing in its hands and shrieked with joy, rushing out of the room, presumably to show Nurse Joy the treasure it had acquired.

"What did you give it?" Ash inquired, removing his hat and coat. He was dead tired, and could barely wait to get to sleep.

"A soothe bell," Skinny took her hair out of its usual ponytail, and let it fall around her in caramel cascades that swept down her back. It was beautiful – he wondered why she didn't wear it like this more. "It soothes the holder, who will then grow more friendly toward whoever gave it to them."

"So, if Chansey gave it to a patient to hold…"

"Exactly," Skinny grinned, kicking off her sopping shoes. "I figured Chansey would get more use out of it than me." She shrugged, opening her backpack to find fresh clothes within.

"That was really nice, Skinny."

"Oh don't go getting soft on me now, Ketchum," She rolled her eyes, the usual sass of her tone ringing through the clean, sterile room. He was about to protest when she lifted her shirt over her head in one swift motion, with no shame at all.

"Skinny!" He whirled around, facing the wall, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "I, uh…you…"

"Oh, relax, Ash," He could hear more soaked clothing fall to the floor with muffled _plops, _and could only imagine just how much of it she was taking off. "What are you, 17?"

"18-"

"If you don't know what a girl's body looks like now you're doomed to die a virgin," She pressed on, ignoring him.

"Thanks…" He scratched his head. "I think." He turned, reluctant, to find she was already completely changed, and he found himself disappointed at the fact. And his disappointment caught him off guard.

_Me? And __**Skinny?**__ No way…_

"Something wrong, Ketchum?" She peered at him as though he were a science experiment. "Saaaaaaaay somethingggggg Aaaaashhhh," She mocked him, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Pi, Pikachu?" Pikachu tugged on his pant leg, shaking him from his thoughts.

"You were…how you…the way you handled Absol…" He shook his head, remembering the way she'd touched it, so gentle and loving, so honest and true, gaining its trust, easing the fear from its troubled mind as it lay in ravaged agony on the floor of the clearing.

"Yeah?" She yawned, stretching again, making her way to her sleeping bag. "What of it?"

"It was…incredible," He followed her example, making his way to his own sleeping bag, Pikachu stealing a pillow for himself in which he could nestle.

"No, it wasn't," She laughed, running her fingers through her hair. "It wasn't anything."

"No, you don't get it Skinny," He insisted, sinking to the floor. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk to a Pokemon like that. Let alone an Absol."

She looked at him, genuine confusion crossing her face. "That Absol was dying. I had to save it. End of story."

"No, it was amazing, Skinny!" Ash shook his head in bewildered awe. "I've seen a ton of people during my journey...but no one like you. It was like you were speaking a different language! I mean, it's just...You…you're different."

"Yeah, ok, whatever Ketchum," She laughed, propping her pillow just to her liking, lying on her side to face him. "Let's just get one thing straight, then."

"Yeah?" He asked with a yawn.

"Don't ask me for help the next time you're dying in a forest."

He laughed, turning over; **that's** why he didn't like Skinny. Her snappy, closed-off attitude made her impossible to know. She wasn't like Misty, hard on the outside but soft on the inside. She was just a giant question mark, all the Arceus-damned time.

_And that,_ he told himself,_ is why I like Misty._

_Don't I?_


	23. Fall Apart: Cat

**A/N: **Again, you THINK I'm shipping Ash/Skinny...but is that really the case? Or am I just f***ing with you? ORRRR do I actually really ship them and throw poor Misty out in the cold? MUAHAHA! The world may never know! Also, remember what I said about this taking place in a world where the earth as we know it DID exist? Yeah. Don't forget it.

-Fallon

P.S. Quite frankly I think I just ship Skinny with everyone, because it's really easy to do. She's so snarky that I love to just make her snap at everyone who tries to hit on her. Plus...welllllll you'll understand the whole 'men being drawn to her' and her being 'unreceptive' thing later on. It's a big part of who she is... DARKNESS ENSUES!

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**23. Cat**

"The Cat in the Hat?"

Ash peered over Skinny's shoulder, unimpressed by the illustrations in the book she held. "What the hell is that?"

"A rhyme!" She cheered, making Brock groan at the terrible pun. "What? Too cliché?"

"Skinny," He shook his head. "That thing's practically older than the Earth."

"So?" She flipped the page, tracing the swirling, arching lines with her fingers.

"So it's not relevant," Brock whistled. "Like, at all."

"Right," Skinny snapped the book shut with finality. "Then neither are you. Because we're friends based on past events, but events of the past aren't relevant, so, therefore, you are not relevant to me."

She stood and walked away, and for a good, long while, both Ash and Brock were convinced she wasn't coming back.

But she did, and when she did, Ash couldn't help but smile. Skinny had a way of getting her point across that wasn't like anyone else he'd ever known.


	24. Fall Apart: No Time

**A/N:** This one's a tearjerker. You have been warned.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**24. No Time**

"Daddy?"

She peered around the corner of the hospital room, terrified of what lay on the other side.

"Hey, tidbit." He laughed, a foreign sound that didn't ring, rich and full as it once had, but was hoarse and uneven and full of sickness. He struggled to sit up, which sent Skinny rushing into the room to keep him from exerting himself.

It was surprisingly bright in here. Light poured in through sheaths of glass paneled along three of the four sides of the room. There were flowers and fruit baskets and get well soon cards and signs and balloons all over the place, but what struck her most was the picture frame on his bedside table.

The photograph was one she knew well; the smiling faces of her father and mother, cradling their baby girl as snow basked them all in white, falling from the sky in big, uneven flakes, dotting their eyelashes and coloring their hair. She was looking up at the foreign little things falling from she knew not where, confused and curious, eyes alight with excited wonder, as her parents beamed that radiant grin of happiness that comes only with parenthood.

It was a time so short-lived it seemed only a dream.

"Glad you could make it," He breathed, eyes crinkling at the seams in that familiar smile. The tubes in his nose made it look painful, the effort of smiling, but he didn't let it show. She sat in the chair beside his bed, overcome with emotion, faltering, searching for something to say.

"I made a good bit of money," She managed, thumbing her bag, tracing the beading of its hem along the edge. That was what she'd set out to do, after all. Find the quickest way to make a lot of money to pay for her father's treatment. Not to mention her own – but that could wait. It would have to. She was 18 with a life long enough to see. He might not make it to tomorrow.

"Yeah?" He grinned. "I knew you had it in you tidbit. You were born a saleswoman." She laughed, light and airy, afraid to let herself go even the slightest bit, or she would lose control. She was sure of it. She wouldn't tell her father what she'd had to do to get the money, or how far she'd had to travel, or what laws she'd had to break to even be considered for wages – none of it mattered. Not now, anyway. Not while he breathed.

"The doctors said it should be enough for treatment for the next month or so," She continued, chewing her lip. The light that poured through the windows – it was hurting her eyes, hurting her head. It made her nauseous, to see her father's face, so old and grizzled now by disease, basked in this unnatural, unholy light.

"I wouldn't worry about that now," Her father closed his eyes, as though he were no match for the heavy hand of sleep. "Just…use it for yourself, tidbit, okay?"

"What?" Skinny's heart stopped. "What are you talking about?" She leapt up from her chair to grasp her father's hand, so big, even now, dwarfing her own. "No. No, no, no, you can beat this. We have options…"

"Skinny." It was one word, and one word enough to shut her up. She bit her lip, biting back tears. Her father's breathing came in uneven lurches, which made her chest ache in reply. "You have a future to think about."

"Yes, and it's a future with you in it," She furrowed her brow, glowering at not her father, but through him, through him and at the idea of time itself and its hold over man and the fragility of life, hard gaze challenging Death himself to go through her to get to her father.

"Tidbit, I-" He choked back a sob. She could see the tears well up in his eyes, could see the hurt in his face. "I'm living on borrowed time, pup."

"Don't say that!" She bellowed, dropping his hand from her own. She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to think her way out of this hole. "We…we can get in touch with the Minnows Research Society. They're international, and expensive, but I've got the money, now, and they're the leading-"

"There's no cure for Minnows, pup," Her father exhaled, suddenly calm and eerily quiet. She turned from her spot at the window, blinking at him.

"_Yet_," She corrected him. "And research is progressing at exponential rates; Dad, don't you see? You could be the one!"

"Tidbit, there's no time for miracles." He smiled weakly at her. "I can give myself to science, but it can't give itself to me. Not now."

"What are you saying?" Her eyes brimmed with tears, the voice inside her head screaming at her to run before he could give her the answer.

A long pause passed between them.

"Come, lay down by your old man," He held up a hand, veiny and frail, and she did as she was told, crawling into the bed beside him, reminding her so much of when she was a child. Something unsaid passed between them, and understanding crashed down around her like a wave, sweeping her up in its reverie.

"I remember when you used to sleep with me like this when you were just a little sprout," He murmured against her hair, resting his arm around her shoulder. She played with the neck of his hospital gown, doing her best to keep her breathing even and steady.

"Yeah," She croaked. "When I would have nightmares about mom."

"Yeah." Neither spoke; neither wanted to acknowledge the fact that the nightmares, once only replays of memories haunting, were now again a reality.

"Do you miss her?" She asked then. He nodded.

"'Course I do," A cough sent his body wracking. She blinked, resignation seeping into her weary bones.

_It's time to say goodbye, Skinny._

"Are you excited to see her again?"

Another long pause; for a moment, Skinny had thought him to be asleep.

"Sure am, tidbit." He held her hand, entwining his fingers with hers, so weak now as he laid here with his daughter, dying a hero's death.

"Will you say hi to her for me?" She asked, the tears falling steady now, running smooth like the babbling of a brook. He kissed his daughter's forehead.

"Sure will, pup."

"Dad?"

"Yeah, tidbit?"

"What's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Heaven?" Another slow churning of time, pulsing and sluggish, before he laid his palms on each of her cheeks, forcing her to look into his charcoal-emerald eyes that seemed to sink away.

"You shouldn't be askin' what it's like, pup, but why."

"Why, what?" But suddenly, an alarming beeping began to pierce the veil of their fond farewell, and his body began to convulse, violent and possessed, his hands falling from her face in furious disarray.

"Dad!" She leapt up from the bed, running to the doorway. "Doctor! Nurse! Please…my father!"

They rushed to the room, bringing machines and technicians and instruments and sanitizer and the paddles that sent electricity coursing through a body in the hopes of jump-starting the heart, but amidst the chaos of the whirlwind of people now tending to the writhing man in bed, Skinny could only count how many beeps it took for the line to stop jumping on the monitor, and to finally settle into a flat, monotone plateau.*

_"Time of death, 10:47AM."_

_ "I'm sorry, honey, he's gone."_

_ "Autopsy report will be necessary; man, age 47, had Minnows."_

_ "Was he an organ donor?"_

_ "It's terrible to see someone go like this. I hope we figure out Minnows soon."_

_ "Is she going to be alright?"_

_ "Does she have any family she can stay with?"_

But she didn't hear any of it. Instead, she listened to the steady pulse of her own heart, the only reminder that she was alive at all, and not dead in the bed beside her father.

"I love you, Dad. Take good care of Mom." She took the picture from the bedside table, giving her father one last kiss on the forehead before leaving the room, eerily calm. And on her way out, she was followed by 8 sets of eyes that wondered why, upon his chest, she'd left a Bird of Paradise behind.


	25. Fall Apart: Trouble Lurking

**A/N: **I don't like this chapter. In fact, I quite hate it. But this exposition had to be done somewhere. So for now, it stays. Unfortunately.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**25. Trouble Lurking****  
**

Puberty.

The one word Skinny hated more than 'moist' (which was a really gross word that she wished people just wouldn't say. Like, why was it necessary? There were other perfectly good words to describe the same concept – 'wet, not soaked' - without giving her Goosebumps all over her body).

It had been a turbulent time for Skinny, partially because she had only a father to rely on for advice – which rendered him pretty much useless – and partially because she'd started that whole 'adult' transition thing at around age 11.

She grew before the other girls in her class, wore bras before the other girls in her class, needed pads before the other girls in her class. It got her noticed, it got her name-called, it got her picked on and targeted, but, worst of all, it got her noticed. Like, _noticed_.

As in, _male_-noticed.

She'd never been much of a girly girl. Sure, she could dress and look the part, but when it came down to it she loved sports, and playing with the boys, and watching Pokémon battles, and wrestling, and horseplay, and fart jokes, and all the other things that would pretty much classify her as a 'boy' – you know, except for the right parts.

So the male attention – this _other _kind of male attention – was…new. Very, _very_ new to her. She started to like boys, sure, but in a 'you're-so-cute-please-hold-my-hand-and-give-me-a-teddy-bear' kind of way, not the 'my-legs-are-open-take-me-now' kind of way.

And the discrepancy between the two became painfully obvious as she grew older.

Contrary to her namesake, Skinny wasn't 'skinny'. She was tall and leggy, but also curvaceous and lithe, a figure that men would kill for. She wasn't lanky, and she wasn't awkward, and she wasn't caught in that space between child and adult, the one that hung there for several years overhead like a spider web you just couldn't reach, growing and evolving as it was spun into creation – no. She'd been thrust into the trials of adulthood long before she was ready.

It wasn't too big of a problem at first. Her city wasn't small, but she knew it well, like the back of her hand, in fact, and was familiar with all she needed to keep her safe and out of harm's way. It grew increasingly apparent that she would attract male attention, with more encounters presenting themselves, particularly in the company of her father (which was always mortifying; apparently, people had taken him for a cradle-robber rather than her father).

But she'd always managed to look out for herself.

And then her father was diagnosed with Minnows.

And food needed to be kept on the table.

And medical bills needed to be paid in full.

And household utilities needed to be dealt with.

And King needed the proper care her father had always given him.

And Skinny was running out of options. She was in her senior year of high school, with no job, no car, and no credentials to get a decent job with a pay near high enough to cover all the expenses she'd had to assume responsibility for.

And so she fell into the world of crime; slow, at first, obviously, but it was easy, so easy with looks like hers, so much easier than an honest day's work that earned her so little when she could gain so much by doing nothing at all, and so it enveloped her until she knew nothing else, until his name was the poison that fell from her lips each night into every rising sun, until she had betrayed everything she once thought herself to be just to protect the life she'd abandoned.

And no one would ever know.


	26. Fall Apart: Tears

**A/N: **Is any of this starting to make sense? Are the pieces starting to fall together? No? Oh well...

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**26. Tears**

Here they were.

She knelt beside the regal bird, offering a prayer to she didn't know what, letting the tears fall like blood upon the petals of a starving flower. Together, basked in the moonlight, they sang as only shadows do.

_We're gonna make it._


	27. Fall Apart: Foreign

**A/N: **GASP! Am I shipping Brock/Skinny now! Will the world ever be the same? Is there a reason why I'm bombarding you with cheesy to be continued questions! STAY TUNED!

-Fallon

P.S. I never said she LIKED the kiss...

P.P.S. That doesn't mean she didn't...

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**27. Foreign**

"Is there anything you_ can't_ cook, Brock?"

He thought for a moment, cracking an egg in Skinny's bowl, making her scowl as he overtook her own culinary station. It was different, now, after he'd kissed her that time, and they both knew it, but neither would acknowledge just what it was that had changed between them. She'd tasted so sweet on his tongue, her lips so soft against his own, unlike any other girl he'd ever kissed; she was foreign to him, completely alien and new and he loved it.

The problem was going back to normal.

"Japanese."

_Crack._


	28. Fall Apart: Sorrow

**A/N: **More exposition. I love exposition. Do you like exposition? Because I can't get enough exposition. I'm talking about Skinny by the way. Though I'm sure you would've figured it out. Lalalala I need to stop talking now doo doo doo...

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**28. Sorrow**

Her eyes were blue.

So blue. _Alarmingly_ blue. Bluer than the sky, bluer than the sea, bluer than sadness, bluer than tears, bluer than music, bluer than ink, bluer than bubbles, bluer than joy, bluer than everything blue ever in existence.

No, they weren't blue – they were _ice_.

And so was her heart.


	29. Fall Apart: Happiness

**A/N: **Another shortie, but a longie after this. Why does that sound dirty?

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**29. Happiness**

"Are you happy?"

Misty asked her once.

"Next question," She'd said.


	30. Fall Apart: Under the Rain

**A/N: **Just as I promised! :D

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**30. Under the Rain**

"There's nothing for me here!"

Skinny threw two shirts and a pair of jeans into the overstuffed suitcase, scurrying from each corner of her room to the next in search of only the most vital things she would need. She couldn't stay here, not after everything that had happened. First her mother, now her father... there was nothing keeping her here. Not anymore.

There were only ghosts here, ghosts that were grinning wide and threatening to swallow her whole.

"Please, Skinny, please think about this!" Delia pled with her in the doorway, tears welling up in her eyes. For someone three years her senior, she sure was a crybaby about _everything_.

"Delia," She blew her hair back from her face, approaching her nearly-hysterical neighbor. "You've been a great friend to me; always have. But I _need_ to do this." She searched her friend's eyes for something, any sign of understanding that would lift the weight of guilt and obligation from her shoulders. "If I stay here, I'll die."

Delia nodded, lower lip all a-tremble.

_Stop doing that, you menace!_ Skinny cursed inwardly. _You're making this harder than it has to be!_

"We'll miss you."

_Arceus._

"I know," Skinny forced a smile. "But hey, I'm just traveling, I'm not dead!" Delia finally laughed, wiping at her eyes, careful to avoid smudging her iconically blue mascara. _Why does she where that when she has green eyes..._

"Will you say goodbye to Daisy?"

Skinny swallowed. _Oh, Daisy..._

She rushed over to her windowsill, plucking a flower from the bed just outside her shutters, suddenly more in a hurry than she had been all damn day. She shook the water from her fingers, only now just realizing the downpour that had begun outside her window. _How fitting that I leave when it's raining...nothing ever goes right in my life, _she thought bitterly._ Hey, you dunce! Maybe that's mom and dad crying for you!_

"Give this to her for me," Skinny pushed the flower into Delia's shaking hands, avoiding her eyes. "She'll know what it means."

"A Bird of Paradise?" Delia sniffed at it inquisitively, confused and shaken. Skinny's patience was waning, and fast.

"Yes, Delia," She groaned. "Your sister will understand, I promise," She grabbed the door handle, urging the all-too nosy girl from her bedroom. "I have to pack now. I'm sorry."

"Y-yeah...ok..." Delia hesitated before throwing her arms around Skinny's neck, who winced under the contact. Reluctantly, she gave her a small squeeze back.

"Just be careful!" Delia whispered. "And keep in touch."

"No promises," Skinny murmured, closing the door on Delia and her old life, looking to the window and the rain to wash her clean.


	31. Fall Apart: Flowers

**A/N: **As funny as Brock can be - I mean, really, whether you're laughing at him or with him, he's just a goddamn riot - I'm really looking to give him some depth in this story. I mean, he's just so untapped of all his hidden potential! So, without further ado... let us begin!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**31. Flowers**

"You don't like flowers?"

"Not really, no."

Brock stood, mouth agape, with the brilliant bouquet in hand, disappointment clouding his vision_. What did she mean she didn't like flowers?_ He'd seen her picking them all the time – stopping whenever time allowed to gather them from the roadside and lovingly putting them in her pack.

And not once had they gone to a town without her visiting the local flower shop, buying for herself three Birds of Paradise. Like clockwork.

"What kind of a girl doesn't like flowers?"

_Shit. Wrong question._

Skinny's eyes narrowed as she pushed the bouquet back into his chest, further testament to her rejection.

"This girl."


	32. Fall Apart: Night

**A/N: **Can you guess who she's talking to? I'll give you a hint: it's not her dad. HAH. I'm a bitch...

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**32. Night**

"I can't even stand to be around you, do you know that?"

His voice was quiet, but steady. He wouldn't meet her gaze, instead leaning on the rail, looking out on the horizon – a blackened ocean that bled into an empty sky.

"So why are you here?" She counted the stars with her eyes, tracing the moon with lips of wine colored sorrow. She prayed he wouldn't hear her heart stuttering, or her breath tripping over a trembling tongue.

She prayed he wouldn't feel her fear.

"I couldn't stay away."


	33. Fall Apart: Expectations

**A/N: **Short. Shorter. Shortest.

-Fallon

P.S. And no, you're not meant to know who's speaking, or to whom. It's meant to apply to everyone.

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**33. Expectations**

"You don't ever have to feel like you have to prove yourself to me."


	34. Fall Apart: Stars

**A/N: **Um. I love Zebstrika. Did you know that?

-Fallon

P.S. If you hadn't guessed by now, Skinny's got a bit of a 'gift' with Pokemon... I'll let you guess the nature of that gift, though...

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**34. Stars**

Lying on her back, buried in grass that smelled of burnt cinnamon and freshly mown honeydew, she laughed.

Not a hard laugh, or a dark laugh, or a loud laugh, but a real laugh, breathy and airy and so like the echo of a wind chime carried against the breeze. She gazed up into the vast night sky, up into the faces of all the blinking stars, up into the heavens alight with all the souls that ever were and would be, counting her blessings and her burdens and playing them upon the evening's ephemeral glow.

Zebstrika lay at her side, kicking his hooves up in the air in playful, uncoordinated mirth.

He was so childlike, now.

She had never seen him so young before.

"Are you trying to touch the stars?" She breathed, watching as his hooves danced across the sky. "I don't think you can reach them…" He whinnied, mane ablaze with fiery electricity.

_They're full of light like me._ She smiled, humbled by his innocence. _Is that where I come from? Do I come from the stars?_

The look of unconditional hope that crossed his face silenced her, if even only for a moment.

"Yes. Yes, you do."

She didn't regret the lie. Not even for a moment.


	35. Fall Apart: Hold My Hand

**A/N: **MORE PHIPHER, MORE PHIPHER! Guys, I really hope you'll love Phipher like I do. I can't wait for you to actually get to _know_ him...

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**35. Hold My Hand**

"Skinny…"

"_Phipher_," She mocked him, rolling her eyes at his indignation.

"Would you take me seriously for a minute?"

"Is there any other way to _take_ you?" She retorted. He glowered at her.

"Your pride is going to be your downfall one of these days," He shook his head, exasperated. "Why can't you see that?"

"I'm sorry, I'm getting a lot of bullshit on this line," She stormed away from him, putting her finger to her ear as though she were caught on her Xtransreceiver. "Please leave a message after the bee-"

But she was interrupted, then, by an explosion of ash and dust and rock that blew her from one end of the clearing to the other, felling her beside the handsome stranger – _no__**, friend**__,_ she thought through gritted teeth – who struggled to right himself after the fall. Blinking away the cloud of uncertainty, she could make out shadows against the haze, outlines of people, angry voices permeating the edge of her mind, inhumane _cracks_ and _whips_ and _pops _of energy razing the air.

"Skinny, are you alright?" Phipher's voice broke – such a rare thing to hear – as he knelt before her, looking her over for any injuries, eyes widening in horror. _Just how bad did she look after that, anyway?_

"I'm fine," She shook his hand off her shoulder, unfazed by the violent interruption, still angry at the stubborn trainer for trying to keep her from chasing her dreams. Who did he think he was, anyway? Her _father_?

_"You."_

It was a hiss, a slithering purr from halfway across the wooded lea that snaked its way up her spine, a voice that she would know anywhere, no matter how far from home she strayed.

It was the voice that still haunted her every night in her dreams.

She wasn't sure how or when Phipher brought her to her feet with those impossibly strong arms, but she relished the feeling of the warmth of his hand as she faced her demons, day breaking just above the trees.


	36. Fall Apart: Precious Treasure

**A/N: **Just something sweet for all the Pokemon lovers out there - no, I mean _Pokemon_, not the game or the manga or the anime, but the little adorable critters that go to battle for their trainers in the blink of an eye just because they love them so unconditionally. Yeah. Them.

-Fallon

P.S. If you want a hint, this is related to **15. Silence**. I'll let you figure out how.

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**36. Precious Treasure**

She didn't care that she'd lost all her possessions.

She didn't care she'd lost the roof over her head, the tent that was her bed, the potions and items and candies and drinks and survival utensils that had served her over the last few months.

She didn't care that she herself was lost, or starving, or dying of thirst, or sweating, or exhausted, or bleeding out with every breath.

She didn't care about what she'd lost.

She cared only for what she'd kept, staring into the loving faces of her Pokémon, thankful to whatever higher power existed that they had lived to see another day.


	37. Fall Apart: Eyes

**A/N: **Ahhhh, is it killing you yet? All this confusion and not knowing who is who or what is what? Because it's killing me for you!

-Fallon

P.S. Another hint; Skinny says the second line.

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**37. Eyes**

"What's your favorite color?"

"Your eyes."


	38. Fall Apart: Abandoned

**A/N: **I'm in love with this. I just... my heart. *Flutter* *Faint*

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**38. Abandoned**

_You can't leave me!_

That's what his agonizing cry sounded like to her ears, the little Dunsparce wailing at her feet. He was alone in this sandy tomb, a runt, she could see by the size of him, without any family of which to speak, without any home to which he could return.

_**Please**__ don't leave me!_

His tears pulled apart the strings of her heart as they fell to the relic floor, and she could hear so much of herself in his cries. She'd felt the same when her mother lay dying, losing the battle to keep her grip on the world, and the guilt that had ravaged Skinny's stomach every day since for being angry at what she'd thought was her mother's abandonment had not yet made itself known to the little girl with the big heart and no understanding of the difference between life and death.

_I have nowhere to go! I'm so scared here, miss._

Her heart had made that same sound the day her mother died.

With a sad sigh, she knelt before him, picking the hysterical Dunsparce up in her arms, cradling his sorrow with her own.

"Welcome home," She smiled.

She didn't need to say anything else. She could see it in his eyes.

_Thank you, miss. Thank you for giving me what my mama couldn't._

"My mama couldn't either."


	39. Fall Apart: Dreams

**A/N: **As is my usual M.O., here's a very short entry followed by a very long one. Enjoy! :)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**39. Dreams**

She tried not to sleep more than she ever needed to.

She was plagued by dreams of memories she'd long since tried to forget.


	40. Fall Apart: Rated

**A/N: **WARNING: Darkness ahead. You have been warned.

Also, I hope this sheds a lot of light on Skinny's character. I did my best.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**40. Rated**

Humiliation had never tasted so sweet.

Sickeningly sweet, of course.

She was stood in a line of countless others, some crying, some quiet, some shivering, some little more than skin and bones, all looking for the same thing.

The satisfaction of approval.

Acceptance.

A declaration of perfection.

She wondered how many were here voluntarily, like she was. How many were searching for the quickest way to make the fortune that they desired. How many were seeking to save a dying father, or mother, or sister or brother or husband, or how many sought to free themselves from the chains of poverty. How many wanted money, and money alone.

Or maybe they were all here against their will, stolen in the night by some overpowering thug being paid under the table by a high-ranking politician whose secrets would never leave the whitewashed walls he hid behind.

Maybe she was the only one foolish enough to volunteer for this, this hell she now stood waiting to enter.

A chill wracked her spine as a breeze blew threw the doorway, another young girl being forced through its entrance to stand at the back of the line. Her eyes were puffy and red, but her cheeks were smooth as satin, clear and even with the foundation they'd used to hide her tears, the streaks of mascara not even scars from a time mere moments before when she'd been crying for salvation.

Skinny bit back her doubt and faced forward, ignoring the small innocent in the back. _Eyes forward, Skinny,_ she told herself. _Focus, old girl, dad needs you._

There were short girls, and tall girls, and big girls, and small girls, and girls with light skin, and girls with dark, girls with curly hair, girls with big eyes, girls with long legs, and girls with shaking hands, all waiting to be thrown into the pit from which there was no return.

_No return my ass,_ Skinny had said to Melanie, the girl she'd befriended not a week before. _I'm not getting stuck in this hellhole for the rest of my life._

_That's what they all say,_ Melanie had said in reply.

She swallowed back the memory, focusing instead on the torrent of slurs and insults being pummeled at each girl as she made her way around the domed room lined in mirrors, mirrors that were two-way so the object in the middle was stripped of even a minimal amount of dignity as she was ricocheted off of slimy lips, passed from wandering eye to slithering tongue, separated from the face that would ultimately take her away.

She could hear their laughter through the walls, could hear the comments as they crept through cracks under doors and crawled over the glass of the windows.

_Too fat._

_Too short._

_Too plain._

_What's her name?_

_Like cottage cheese…_

_Too many veins!_

_Ripe for the picking._

_I can see those legs wrapped around me…_

_Beautiful eyes._

_I want her lips on my cock, alright._

Skinny set her jaw, clearing her throat of the bile that rose to meet her teeth. Her disgust would not deter her, as neither had her pride.

_You knew the risks coming into this,_ she told herself, stepping up each couple of minutes to fill the empty space as another at the front of the line disappeared into the void. _You will do this for your father, because he's all that you have left. And you will do it with a smile. You got that?_

She wasn't sure when she'd become so hard on herself; even Melanie had noticed her self-deprecating manner.

_You're your own worst enemy,_ she'd said. It was the last thing she'd said to her that night before being taken away in the morning, kicking and screaming for someone, anyone to help.

Skinny couldn't watch as they dragged her away.

"Sweetheart, I said **you're up next**," The grunt at the door shoved her forward, then, into the eerily white room flooded with fluorescent light, casting her skin in a sickly glow. She panned the room, rocking on her heels, unused to the feel of pumps beneath her feet, trying to catch her balance as she stared into each mirror with a blank stare upon her face, unaffected.

She was forced to face her body, so brazenly presented to whoever sat beyond the glass, shielded only by jeweled lingerie that made her itch in violation, an itch she would never be allowed to scratch. Her hair fell in sweeping waves down her back, and for once, she didn't think it looked ratty as it usually did; it looked greasy instead. Slimy. Wrong.

It was unsettling, in here, not because she knew what they were saying about her, about her body and her face and her flaws, but because it was quiet, silent, even, the only sound her heartbeat fluttering against her ribs like the wings of a hummingbird (or so the saying went – they had been long since extinct when she was born). She couldn't hear a thing in this dead, empty room, unlike her time spent in line waiting to face judgment day – literally – and it made her uneasy, blind and deaf to whatever foul words were defiling her from across the glass.

She watched herself, so foreign and ugly, trying to take her mind off the whispers she couldn't hear echoing inside her mind. _This humiliation will __**end**__, Skinny,_ she told herself. _One of them will buy you, and before you know it, you'll have enough money to save your father from Minnows ten times if you wanted._

But she was jarred from her thoughts, her eyes frightening her beyond recognition. They were empty, dead things, two pools of ice that bore into her reflection, freezing her blood where it streamed, closing a firm hand over her throat.

They were the eyes of her mother's corpse.


	41. Fall Apart: Teamwork

**A/N: **It's Phipher.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**41. Teamwork**

"I still don't know your name."  
She glared at him, but continued walking, her pace steady, not even a moment's hesitation interrupting her steps.

"I'd prefer it stay that way."

"Why?" He didn't miss a beat.

"I don't know _yours_ either," She sneered. After all they'd seen and done together, it was quite hard to swallow that they still didn't know each other's names. She hadn't even considered it until now.

"_I'd prefer it stay that way_," He mimicked her, and for once that day, she smiled. The rest of their walk was in comfortable silence, a single strand of teamwork binding them together.


	42. Fall Apart: Standing Still

**A/N: **It's another dark chapter, brought to you by misery-r-us!

Enjoy!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**42. Standing Still**

"Shhhhh!"

Her hand was splayed across Vaporeon's mouth in a last-ditch effort to quiet the heavy panting of her partner as the ghosts inched down the hallway, breathlessly close to where they stood, separated only by a thin layer of plaster against which she and her Pokémon now stood flat, praying to escape their notice.

"_Skinny_," It taunted, hissing her name in a sickening coo. Her free hand fell over her own mouth then, pathetically trying to hide the hyperventilation that threatened to escape a spasming throat. Tears slid silently from her lashes at all that went unsaid.

"We'll find you Skinny," Came the unadulterated drone. "We'll always find you."

The light coming from the doorway blackened, and she knew they'd been discovered.

It was a death sentence.


	43. Fall Apart: Dying

**A/N: **Don't kill me, but the one after this isn't long. It's not short, but not long... What do you want from me!

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**43. Dying**

Her favorite time of day was when the light of a dying sun just crossed the horizon, that hovering moment between night and day.

It was a moment upon the precipice of change.


	44. Fall Apart: Two Roads

**A/N: **Another ship for your collection of Skinny pairings. I knew just what you wanted, eh?

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**44. Two Roads**

"Well, I'm headed this way…"

"And I this way."

They stood, just staring at each other, unsure of what to say next.

"I'll see you around sometime?" Skinny offered him her hand.

Steven took a step toward her, ignoring the gesture.

"I'd like that."

A kiss on the forehead, a stroke of her hair, and he was gone.

"Men…" Skinny scratched at the spot, now fiery hot and uncontrollably tingling, when she heard the familiar _swiLING_ of a Pokémon leaving its ball. King stood at eye level with her, unable to hide the way his gaze danced and shimmered.

_Love is in the air…_

"SHUT UP, KING!"


	45. Fall Apart: Illusion

**A/N: **SKINNY/ASH AGAIN! I just love the drama of this pairing, because I hopelessly ship Misty/Ash in all other aspects of life until Skinny came into the picture, and like... what's life without conflict? And for all my Pokeshippers out there, don't worry, there's going to be a LOTTTTT of Misty/Ash in this story. I'm just making you work for it :)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**45. Illusion**

_I don't love her._

_ I don't love her._

_ I don't love her._

_ I don't love her._

_ I can't love her._

_ I won't love her._

Skinny flashed Ash a smile from across the hall before ducking into her bedroom for the night, and his breath escaped him in an avalanche of relief, his heart breaking into two.

_I should have seen this coming._


	46. Fall Apart: Family

**A/N: **Just a hint to all you readers out there (wherefore art thou readers!), this goes with **15. Silence** and **36. Precious Treasure**.

-Fallon

P.S. I'm sure you can figure out the sequence of events, but whoever does it first in the reviews gets a special entry dedicated to any topic of their choice! GO GO GO!

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**46. Family**

"I've lost everyone!"

She cried into her open palms, clawing at the ground in despair. "Everyone I ever loved is gone!" She hit her father's tombstone with a resounding loss of hope.

"I have no family left…"

Silent tears burned away the soil, eroded the mud that hid her father somewhere deep beneath the earth, when a familiar chime touched her ears.

_What about us?_

Startled, she looked up to find the six Pokémon of her party all knelt before her, eyes swimming with tears. She was unsure whether they were upset to see her cry or if they felt angered by her dissidence.

_Aren't we your family?_

Suddenly, her world was thrown on its head and ceased its spinning, if only for a second, their tails and footsteps trailing behind them as they fled into the forest.

She had betrayed them.

"I-"

But they were gone.


	47. Fall Apart: Creation

**A/N: **So this one's the direct explanation of how Skinny's mother died. I figured there needed to be some more concrete chapters amongst all of these confusing entries... enjoy! (Short again, sorry!)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**47. Creation**

Skinny Hobbes was born on a cold winter morning amidst a blizzard sweeping through the region.

She was premature by a month, though doctors wouldn't understand why that mattered until her mother died four years later.

Such prematurity was a symptom of her mother's periodontal disease that would viciously attack her gums and teeth later in life. And though she would seek treatment and seemingly make a strong recovery, no one ever told her it made her more at risk of heart disease.

No one ever told Hillary Hobbes she would develop an aortic aneurysm.

No one ever told Hillary Hobbes that such an aneurysm could result in a blood clot that would travel to her brain and cause a stroke.

No one could ever explain to little Skinny Hobbes just why her mommy had to die.


	48. Fall Apart: Childhood

**A/N: MORE PHIPHER MORE PHIPHER MORE PHIPHER! Can you see him now? Can ya, can ya, can ya!**

**-Fallon**

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**48. Childhood**

"You never talk about your childhood."

The question caught her off guard, especially coming from the big, broodingly boyish Phipher Lockhart. Muscular, bronzed, broad-shouldered; golden-haired, blue-eyed, dimpled; hard-jawed, deep-voiced, rugged; eyes full of feeling, full lips, impossibly white teeth. The 25-year old who towered over her, perpetually leaving her in his shadow, both literally and figuratively, was the textbook example of the divine balance between innocence and masculinity.

He drove her fucking _nuts_.

"You've never asked."

"_Skinny_."

The way he said it cut her to the quick.

"What do you want to know?" She sighed. Why did everyone always want to know about her Arceus-damned childhood? It sucked. That's all there ever was to say.

"Well…" She could see his jaw tighten and flex with the grinding of his teeth. He could feel the tension in the air just as well as she. "What was your father like? Your mother?"

Silence sliced through the space between them, turning the air stale and cold.

"Fatherly. Motherly." She stood and stretched, a snarling glint in her eye. "Respectively." A smirk.

"Come on, Skinny," He groaned, lying back in the grass. "You never tell me anything."

"Oh, because I know so much about _you_," She stared at him in disbelief. His arrogance knew no bounds.

"Well, there's nothing to know," He shrugged, his enormously broad shoulders rising and falling in time with the sound of his resignation. "I never had a family. I grew up in an orphanage. Wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do there, so there isn't exactly much to tell."

"Oh, I'm so _sorry_," She cooed. "Your life is just _so_ difficult; I can't even begin to _imagine_ your pain."

"Skinny, why do you have to turn this into an argument?" His voice was hard and gravelly. She blinked back her surprise – he was always so calm and well spoken. It was rare to hear his voice rise above anything more than a smooth monotone. "I'm not trying to milk you for any sympathy, and I'm not trying to push you away. Is it so hard to believe someone could actually, honestly _care_?"

"Yes."

She stormed off, leaving him speechless at the base of the tree, clenching her fists and choking back tears she refused to let him see.


	49. Fall Apart: Stripes

**A/N: **FINALLY, A BATTLE! Right? I mean, maybe you guys weren't waiting to read this as long as I was waiting to write it, but what the hell... Anyway, this is a much more realistic take on what Pokemon battles actually ARE. And I have to say it made me feel ridiculously bad because it reminds me so much of dog-fighting and I'm a super huge mega-watt enormously giant animal lover, so I'm reeeeeeeally really against animal cruelty and... well... I don't really know how to justify battles in Pokemon yet. YET.

But maybe that's the point.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**49. Stripes**

That was all she could see when she looked at her Blackthorn City gym badge.

Stripes. Endless, blurring, blood red stripes that shone like claws freshly dug into the bark of a tree.

_You should be proud!_ She told herself. _You defeated Clair when no one else could! You've __**earned**__ this._

But at what cost?

Her dragons had been merciless. Clair had been just the same. They dug into Arcanine with a fervor only the hunt could grant, and it scared her.

This was not a battle.

This was a fight for survival.

But as she cradled Arcanine's enormous, limp head in her lap, she let him lick the badge that gleamed so seamlessly in the fluorescent lights of the gym, his eyes full of pride and his heart full of hope. She tried not to stare at his sides, at his fur that was so streaked with blood, tried not to remember the black and orange stripes that blurred across the floor with every fall of her opponent, tried not to smell the rust of Arcanine's scars or feel the warmth of her fingers, so soaked in his blood.

She would make it to the Pokémon Center later that day, and Arcanine would live to tell the tale.

His body would be razed with scars that traced his own markings with eerie precision, his eye near blind and his ear half-deaf on the side that which he'd braced Gyarados's Hyper Beam with a will to endure she had never seen before.

He would battle as he always had, with grace and agility and cutting determination, but for the blindside he'd have at the behest of Gyarados's heavy thrashing.

And he would beam at her with those regal jaws and shining fangs and feel for her a trust that had never been misplaced.

But she would look back at him and falter.

She would look back at him and see her failure.


	50. Fall Apart: Breaking the Rules

**A/N: **I told you I was a Pokeshipper c:

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**50. Breaking the Rules**

He had stolen her bike to save Pikachu's life.

She had followed him to get it back.

He had destroyed her bike for good.

She had waited for him to fix his mistake.

He still hasn't paid her back.

She still hasn't left.

Skinny doesn't expect either one to change.


	51. Fall Apart: Sport

**A/N: **You should know now that, though this involves Skinny x Steven, they're not a part of my actual romantic plan. Steven was a person Skinny trusted throughout her travels, grew close with, and had a momentary one time 'we would be perfect together' thing, but then went their separate ways, understanding they would never be with the other. They each open the other's eyes to what they want in life and their own inner demons, but they are never TOGETHER. Does that make sense? This is an extension of that idea, after they parted ways a few entries ago (**46. Two Roads**) this happens... :] Then the revelation, and so on and so forth.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**51. Sport**

"Steven Stone," She guffawed, kicking at a stone – how fitting – settled on the path.

"Pfff! What an uptight, arrogant asshole!"

King eyed her, skeptical, as she continued her rant down the trail.

"The nerve!" She broke off a branch from the overhang looming over the walkway, snapping it in time with her bitter remarks. "He thinks he's so _utterly_ grand – he plays women for sport!"

_You don't believe that._

"And what if I do, King?" She whirled on the bird, eyes racing with fury. "He was all 'oh, yeah, I wanna see you!' and then just…disappeared!" She crossed her arms, staring angrily at the road. "Rude."

_It's been ten minutes since he left and you're already angry._

"I've had enough of your illogical nonsense, King," She huffed, settling herself on the dirt below, crossing her legs Indian-style.

_I'm right._

"What of it?" She grimaced, admitting defeat. "It won't change the fact that he led me on and then left. Like they always do."

_Ten minutes, Skinny, ten minutes!_

"Time's irrelevant," She wouldn't look at the Pidgeot who was trotting in front of her, trying to steal her attention. "Men are always just waltzing into my life, doing with me whatever the hell they please, and then abandoning me like I was never even there at all! Well, I will not take it anymore! That's right, Skinny Hobbes has had it, she is changing her ways – no more of your love for the male species, Ms. Hobbes, we are now LESBIAN – yes, that's right, old girl, you heard me! Vaginas only! Men are nothing but Tepigs and trouble! Pack your bags, grab your gear, heterosexual Skinny has left the building!"

"Skinny?"

_Oh shit._

"Who are you talking to?"

"Oh…h-hi, Steven…"

_ Ten minutes, fifty-three seconds._

**"Shut up, King!"**


	52. Fall Apart: Deep in Thought

**A/N: **This is just some insight into A) the nature of their relationship (Ash/Skinny is a big part of this story, INDEPENDENT of whether or not there's 'romance' between them) and B) the nature of Skinny's mind. She's a complex character who doesn't offer a lot of insight into the inner workings of her train of thought very often, so little snippets like this can help shed some light on who she really is.

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**52. Deep In Thought**

"Hey, Ash?"

"Yeah, Skinny?"

"What do you think of blue?"

"…You mean, like, the color?"

"No, I mean the superhero. Yes, I mean the color."

"Uh…I don't know. It's fine, I guess. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"Is that what you've been thinking about all day? You've been quiet since we left Jubilife City."

"None of your damn business, Ketchum."


	53. Fall Apart: Keeping a Secret

**A/N: **I love this. I just... it's very tender. Very intimate. And it really reveals Skinny's morals. If you hadn't noticed the recurring theme, Skinny's childhood was less than peachy, and so her love for all things innocent and childlike - timid, small Pokemon fall under this category particularly well, but she pretty much feels this way about all Pokemon, since they are 'animals' and innocent, in a sense - stems from the understanding of the loss of innocence at a young age. She's very much like Holden Caufield from _Catcher in the Rye_ - wanting to protect the children from running off the cliff (metaphor for anyone who hasn't read the book!). Except this comes out in her when she deals with Pokemon... not so much humans. Even as a child she connected with Pokemon (maybe because of that certain GIFT she seems to use in this chapter quite a bit...cough...)

-Fallon

* * *

**Variation #1: "Fall Apart"**

**53. Keeping a Secret**

She shook the branches out over the campfire, watching as flames licked at the cool night air.

A few more hours and it would be dawn.

_You need sleep, master!_

She eyed the newly caught addition to the team, a nervously timid Caterpie who was lying by her sleeping bag. She stared up at her with eyes like saucers, body shivering in the chill. It had taken barely any effort on Skinny's part to capture the little bug Pokémon, and it had taken even less time for the creature to get attached.

"I told you not to call me that," She shook her head, exasperated. The last thing she wanted to be was this Pokémon's _master_.

_What do I call you, then, master?_ The Caterpie blinked up at Skinny, innocent and without prejudice.

"Skinny," Skinny stepped away from the fire and over toward her sleeping bag, rubbing together icy hands. "My name is Skinny."

_Ok, master Skinny!_ The Caterpie chirped aloud, tail waggling in delight_. You are Skinny master!_

"No, no master!" Skinny put her hands up in defense. "I'm just Skinny. I'm _not _your master!"

The Caterpie shrank away from her then, hurt. Frightened.

_D-d-did I do something w-wrong, m-master?_

"Of course not," Skinny exhaled, deep and full, as she lowered herself beside the Pokémon. "Do you know what 'master' means?"

_Leader,_ Caterpie's eyes swam with something Skinny couldn't place. _It means leader! Alpha!_

"Right," Skinny winced at the sound. "But I'm not either of those things."

_You're not?_ Caterpie blinked. She was confused.

"No," Skinny drew a line in the dirt, laying Caterpie's Pokéball out in front of the little bug. "You and I are equals." She tapped the ball with an unsteady finger. "This is your ball – this is a sign that I want to be your friend – but you don't have to stay in it. Not if you don't want to. You're free to leave whenever you want."

_Master wants me to leave?_

"No!" Skinny bit her cheek, fighting for the right words to say. "Skinny wants you to be happy." A pause. "But Skinny would also love to be your teammate, if you'll have her."

Caterpie was quiet for a while, presumably considering Skinny's words, and she wondered if maybe the little creature had fallen asleep.

_Ok, Skinny_. Caterpie snuggled up beside her, then, eyes turned toward the stars. _I will stay with you. I will stay because you are my friend._

"You remembered my name," Skinny blinked back tears. They were quiet for a few moments, comfortable just being together. "Caterpie? Do you have a name?"

_No, I never had a name. Not like you._

"Do you want one?"

_Yes, please._

"How about Secret?"

_Why Secret?_

"Because I'm good at keeping secrets."

_…Thank you, Skinny. I like that._


End file.
